The invention relates to a device for drying laundry by means of a current of air, comprising a drum to accommodate the laundry and a ducting system to direct the current of air, the ducting system having a section arranged on the downstream side of the drum, in which the air current is directed in a downward direction, and within which is located a filter to remove lint from the current of air and a scraper to scrape off lint captured by the filter and a receptacle with an opening to take the lint thus scraped off said filter.
A device of this kind is known from EP 1 050 619 B1 and DE 44 03 183 C2 respectively. The device in accordance with these publications incorporates a flat filter, which serves to catch lint dislodged and conveyed by a current of warmed air during the drying of the laundry, which is agitated in a rotating drum. The lint captured by the filter must be removed at regular intervals, in order that the resistance to the current of air provided by the filter is sufficiently low to prevent the drying of the laundry being impaired. To this end, each device is provided with a scraper, which is periodically actuated, in order to scrape the captured lint from the filter. According to EP 1 050 619 B1, the filter is embodied as part of a continuous belt, and when driven by a motor, can be moved past the fixed scraper with its entire effective length. The lint thereby scraped off the filter is collected in a reservoir. According to DE 44 03 183 C2, the filter is embodied as a fixed surface, and is traversed by a movable scraper in order to remove the lint captured; the scraper is connected to a closure mechanism for the door of the tumble dryer by means of an appropriate transmission, so that the scraper is passed across the filter every time the door is opened. The disclosure of both publications is incorporated by reference herein.
EP 0 997 571 B1 relates to a method for monitoring the current of drying air in a household tumble dryer and a correspondingly developed household tumble dryer. Here, a means to measure and monitor the speed of the stream of drying air is provided for. An undesirably high resistance to the current of air is thus detected and indicated by a suitable alarm. The main cause for such an increase in resistance to the current of air is lint, which is collected in appropriate components of the dryer. According to DE 199 24 297 A1, a household tumble dryer is provided for, with a self-cleaning lint filter, appropriate sensor equipment and a correspondingly developed control device, in order to enable the detection of an unacceptably high level of resistance to the air current at the lint filter during a drying process, and to rectify this by effecting self-cleaning of the lint filter. The disclosure of both publications is incorporated by reference herein.
Each of the devices described in the cited publications EP 1 050 619 B1 and DE 44 03 183 C2 is characterized in that it has systematized the cleaning of the filter through removal of the captured lint, so that impairment of the drying process is largely excluded, and consistently good results from the drying process ensured. No convenient and simple means of removing and disposing of the collected lint yet exist, however.